Lord Acton...on men of science
If men of science owe anything to us, we may learn much from them that is essential. For they can show how to test proof, how to secure fullness and soundness in induction, how to restrain and to employ with safety hypothesis and analogy. It is they who hold the secret of the mysterious property of the mind by which error ministers to truth, and truth slowly but irrevocably prevails. Theirs is the logic of discovery, the demonstration of the advance of knowledge and the development of ideas, which as the earthly wants and passions of men remain almost unchanged, are the charter of progress, and the vital spark of history.
- A lecture on The Study of History, 1895